Power Rankings: In this space, as if Talladega never happened

Updated Oct. 6

My rankings, my rules.

In a Power Rankings first, after the farce that was Talladega, I've made not one single change in this week's rankings.

Jeff Gordon might be in the minority as a Talladega supporter. (AP)

Talladega has become the big elephant in the room. Don't get me wrong -- Talladega provides a great show, but to call what we witnessed Sunday a "race" is a joke.

The drivers are basically along for the ride at 200 mph. There's no such thing as having the car to beat at Talladega, because everybody has the car to beat. Pick the right lane and -- boom! -- a driver can go from 20th to the lead in a matter of a couple of laps with a few well-placed shots to the bumper.

"That is our only option," said Jimmie Johnson, who was able to avoid disaster for a ninth-place finish. "Once you get stalled out, the lines are set, no one can go anywhere.

"If somebody can get hooked up bumper-to-bumper, you kind of slip into a little pocket where the air misses the back part of the spoiler. If you can get in that, slide into that pocket, you can check out and make stuff happen. That's the only offensive move we have right now in plate racing. That's why everybody is using it so much."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a five-time winner at Talladega, but even he has become frustrated by what Talladega has become.

"To be honest with you, that wasn't fun," said Earnhardt, who was caught up in a multi-car wreck on Lap 174 and finished 28th. "Anybody can pass, no skill involved. We are going to tear up a lot of race cars with this the way it is."

Jeff Gordon, a six-time winner at Talladega, shared a similar sentiment to that of his Hendrick Motorsports teammates Johnson and Earnhardt.

"Guys were idiots driving into one another," said Gordon, who wound up 38th after David Reutimann blew a tire in front of him. "I include myself in that statement when I say it because that's the kind of racing we have out there.

"You've got to beat the rear bumper off the guy in front of you in order to get ahead. And you're stacked up there three-wide, several rows deep, and it's like bumper cars at 190 mph. It's crazy. It's great when you come to the checkered flag and you see it and you're in one piece. It's awesome. But it's getting there that's tough." If the usual Talladega madness wasn't enough, Sunday's race had the extra dimension of exploding tires.

Reutimann, Brian Vickers, Mike Wallace, Jamie McMurray, Denny Hamlin all fell victim to blown tires. Hamlin ended up in the hospital overnight after his shot him hard into the wall.

"I felt a bomb explode in my right front tire," said Vickers. "I just went down into the tri-oval and it didn't cut or go flat -- it exploded. I saw the right-front fender going through the air before the front of the car even dropped.

"When you lose a right-front tire there's nothing you can do. Your brakes don't work, especially when you explode one to that magnitude. You're really just at the mercy of where momentum is going to take you and other guys around you and hopefully they avoid you. There's absolutely nothing you can do when you blow a right front tire."

Thankfully, we're back to real racing next weekend at Lowe's Motor Speedway, where a driver and his crew actually can make a difference as to who wins and loses.

Power Rankings after Talladega: